CS Knowledge Base

Latin complexus (“embrace”).

complexus (plural complexuses)

1. (dated) A complex, an aggregate of parts
   • 1827, The Oriental Herald, volume 14, page 85:

     Whenever any of the great complexuses of the nerves, by intestine jars, have entangled themselves, at my approach they range into regular order, and give mutual assistance to each other in a friendly embracing intercourse […]

2. (anatomy) A large muscle of the back, passing from the spine to the head.

• “complexus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Form of complector (“to entwine, encircle, compass, infold”), compound of com- (“together”) and plecto (“to weave, braid”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kɔmˈpɫɛk.sʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [komˈplɛk.sus]

complexus (feminine complexa, neuter complexum); first/second-declension participle

1. embraced
2. surrounded
3. involved

First/second-declension adjective.

• English: complect
• Spanish: complejo

From complector +‎ -tus (action noun suffix).

(embrace): Compare typologically Turkish sarılma (a verbal noun of sarılmak, akin to sarmak).

complexus m (genitive complexūs); fourth declension

1. an embrace, (euphemistic) a sexual act
2. tie, bond
3. (Late Latin) the totality
4. (Late Latin) society as a whole
5. (Late Latin) understanding

Fourth-declension noun.

• “complexus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “complexus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the book contains something... (not continet aliquid): libro scriptor complexus est aliquid
    
• “complexus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Souter, Alexander (1949), “complexus”, in A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D.‎^[2], 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 1957, page 65
• R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, & R. K. Ashdowne, editors (1975–2013), “complexus”, in Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources‎^[3], London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, →ISBN, →OCLC